Rejoice in the Lord!

This post is from BRiO on Wednesday April 1. Enjoy!

Rejoice? What does that even mean? Well we are glad you asked...

Rejoice (verb) {Something you do!}
joyful, gladness, leaping, shouting, yelling, singing, dancing

What should I rejoice in?
1. Heaven: Your name is written in the book of life! You should also rejoice when other's names are written in the book of life or when others accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and choose to live by God's truth. We have a home in heaven. We also have rewards in heaven.
2. God's works: The blessings God has given us and other believers. We can rejoice over things God has done for us and other believers (like sacrificing himself for our salvation).
3. Hope: The return of Jesus is definitely something worth rejoicing over. We should rejoice in salvation from the presence of sin. We should also rejoice in the coming glory of Christ.

When should I rejoice?
In relation to certain situations...
We should rejoice when things are good. We should be glad and sing God's praises for the good things he is doing.
We should definitely rejoice when things are not good too. We can sing of his goodness because he is working everything out and building our character (Romans 5:3-5), even if things are not exactly how we want them to be.

In relation to time...
Every single chance we get we should rejoice! We have so much to be thankful for!
Communion is another chance for us to rejoice. We are celebrating passover monthly by celebrating communion!
Good Friday/ Easter Sunday is another way of us celebrating and rejoicing for what Christ did.

Ok so Sunday was Easter, but what we don't realize is that there are a lot of correlations between what the Israelites celebrated in Passover and what we celebrate with Easter and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

Passover:
Years ago, God's people, the Israelites were enslaved to Egyptian rule (If you have ever seen Prince of Egypt, you know what I am talking about).
God referred to Israel as his 1st born (Exodus 4:22), and he wanted them to be freed from Pharaoh's enslavement
Pharaoh's heart was hardened against God and he refused to let the Israelites go
Therefore, God sent 10 plagues to persuade Pharaoh to free his people (and to demonstrate his power)
The last plague was the worst, in that plague, God promised to kill the 1st born of all who lacked faith in Him
The people of God were instructed to take an innocent lamb, kill it, and spread the blood on the top of the door post (as a sign of their faith)
God sent his death angel to kill all of the 1st born, except of the families that had the blood of the lamb over the door.
When the death angel saw the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, he was to "PassOver" the house.


In the same way, we are God's first born (Romas 4:16-17) when we believe in Jesus. Instead of being freed from enslavement to Egypt, we are being freed from enslavement to sin. God sacrificed the ultimate Passover Lamb (Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God) so that his blood could be spread over the door of our hearts. Since the wages of sin is death (Hello Death Angel!), it passed over us because we are marked by Jesus's blood by faith.

Boom.


Here is the application:
1. Every chance you get, you should rejoice! You have so much to rejoice about, and if you can't think of anything else, the death and resurrection of Christ should be enough for you to be excited about. When times are tough, focus on the Lord and the promises that he made in his word (you can google God's promises if you don't remember any at the moment)
2. When you are taking communion, remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for your salvation! He gave up his life so that we could be saved and live with him forever!
3. When you put on your easter suit, remember that this is the day that Jesus defeated death so that when we die, we can laugh at death and live with Jesus forever in heaven. Death will "PassOver" us!

Continue to pray for everyone! No matter where you are in the world, you are still part of the BRiO family and you are more than welcome to stop by when you are in town. We meet at 6:30 on Wednesdays in the Upper Room of New Hope Baptist Church on 5202 Watkins Dr Jackson, MS 39206.

Some announcements: 
1. In case you haven't noticed, the blog got an update :) our new website is brionewhope.blogspot.com! The email address is still a4cnewhope@gmail.com
2. Rome and I got married! Yay!
3. If you need personal prayer, please don't hesitate to contact us! We love praying for our brothers and sisters! 
4. We will be posting what goes on in BRiO on here and other things as well. Check in to the blog if you can't make it to BRiO and we will keep you up to date!
5. Pray for ME as well. I have a huge test coming up that I am studying for (that's all I ever do right?). I need God's grace all over this exam, as usual. 
I think that's it! 

Love you guys!
Lise Lise



Picture from Unsplash.com